Presented at IxDA New York, June 7 2012 The Social Lives of Maps People’s use of maps to research and navigate has been radically altered by the development and adoption of digital maps. Maps are no longer static print images. Instead, they are now dynamic and collaborative, as they have evolved in lockstep with the evolution of the Internet, from Mapquest’s launch in 1996 to the Web 2.0 enhanced Google Maps to the user content filled maps of Yelp.

 Understanding how maps can be utilized as tools, interfaces, and content is fast becoming part of the standard “tool kit” of interaction designers. A static image or a link out to a map service may or may not be good enough due to raising expectations of the designer’s clients, employers, and people their designs serve. The new possibilities must also be balanced with the issues about privacy and security.

 This presentation explores how people’s behaviors with digital mappings intersect with the current developments in location-based services, crowdsourcing, open government, and the mobile web. For the practitioner, basic off-the-shelf mapping tools, APIs, and services are discussed.

1. The Social Lives
of Maps:
Interaction Design + Maps
Ray Cha
Thomas Turnbull

2. Maps: are tools

3. Maps: approximate time + space
Image credit: Strange Maps

4. Maps: narrate stories
Image credit: Fathom

5. Maps: some philosophy
"Through a cartographer's choices of selection,
omission, or simplification, a map can be
manipulated to illustrate entirely different
human circumstances in the same physical
geography."
- John Brian Harley, map historian, 1989

6. Maps: whose stories?
How do you represent a church?
Claims to South China
Seas (source: Voice of
America)

7. Map Interaction Design Patterns:
It's not that different (from UX in general.)
Reduce
Prioritize
Organize
* Cooper Design

8. Design Pattern:
Adaptive Design
Image credit: Trulia

9. Design Pattern:
List, Gallery, Map

10. Design Pattern:
List, Gallery, Map

11. Design Pattern:
List, Gallery, Map

12. Design Pattern:
Landing

13. Design Pattern:
Clustering

14. Design Pattern:
Zoom dependency

15. Design Pattern:
Zoom dependency

16. Design Pattern:
Zoom dependency
Control layers through zoom dependency
e.g. Chicago Tribune
e.g. TreeKit

17. Design Pattern:
Zoom dependency
Control layers through zoom dependency
e.g. Chicago Tribune
e.g. TreeKit

18. Design Pattern:
Zoom dependency
Control layers through zoom dependency
e.g. Chicago Tribune
e.g. TreeKit

19. Design Pattern:
Zoom dependency
Control layers through zoom dependency
e.g. Chicago Tribune
e.g. TreeKit

20. Design Pattern:
Reload

21. Design Pattern:
Reload

22. Design Pattern:
Reload

23. Design Pattern:
Browser vs. App

24. Customization:
Pins

25. Customization:
Tiles
Customization : tiles
e.g. Stamen water color

26. Customization:
Pins + Tiles

27. Advanced Interfaces:
Sliders

28. Advanced Interfaces:
Bike Trip Planning

29. Advanced Interfaces:
NYC Oasis

30. Making Maps:
Crowdsourcing

31. Making Maps:
Mapping large datasets

32. Making Maps:
Hacking Map APIs
Image credit: microtyp.org

33. Making Maps:
Comparing Services
Service Cost Effort
Google Free (avg. < 25k/day) Easiest
Bing Free, for now
Open Street Maps Free, as in puppy
ArcGIS Expensive Hardest

34. Making Maps:
Privacy and Security
Let users know what is being
collected
Use caution if you collect
Personally Identifiable Information
Location + other information (time
stamp, satellite imagery, social
media user name) can be
combined to identify individuals

35. Things to look out for:
iOS 6 Maps
Image credit: 9to5Mac

36. Things to look out for:
Vector-based
maps
replacing
raster-based
maps
(already on
Android)

37. Things to look out for:
http://www.google.com/mobile/maps/

38. Things to look out for:
Open Data

39. Take aways:
Maps present UX challenges
Standard UX best practices still apply to
designing interactive maps.
Maps are an opportunity to differentiate.
Custom maps may be easier than you think.

40. Learning more:
The Story of Maps, Lloyd A. Brown
How to Lie With Maps, Mark Monmonier
On Exactitude in Science, Jorge Luis Borges
Strange Maps
Mapping with Drupal, Alan Palazzolo, Thomas Turnbull
Apress Google Maps Books

41. Resources and Tools:
TileMill Open Street Map
Mapknitter Bing Maps API
CloudMade StyleEditor ESRI / ArcGIS
Google Maps API Open Geo
Google Fusion Tables

42. Thank you.
Find us:
ray@weatherpattern.com
@weatherpattern
tom@thomasturnbull.com
@thomasturnbull